Quentin Durward (1955)

November 24, 1955

Derring-Do, but Not Enough; Robert Taylor Stars in 'Quentin Durward'

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: November 24, 1955

SIR Walter Scott's "Quentin Durward" has been studiously squeezed into the familiar mold of a big Cinema-Scopic costume romance by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which seems to have become the screen translator of all English literature. And once more Robert Taylor is playing the heroic role of a high-minded champion of fair ladies. This is beginning to be a trifle dull.

Certainly it lacks for excitement when, in this film that came to the Mayfair yesterday, the intrigues of France's Louis XI and the Duke of Burgundy are placed upon the screen in such lengthy and ponderous complexity that they exhaust and befuddle the mind.

Who wants to watch Robert Morley as the fat and scheming king spend long minutes jawing with Marius Goring as the arrogant Count de Creville or puffing his cheeks and arguing vainly with Alec Clunes as the lordly Burgundy? What passes for deep political plotting over the destinies of France is just so much confusing name-dropping in Robert Ardrey's script.

The times when this heavily stuffed contrivance does have a tendency to move are when Mr. Taylor is working to get himself out of jams, usually vis-a-vis Duncan Lamont as the black-hooded robber of the Ardennes. Then Mr. Taylor, as a Scotsman who comes to France to observe the beautifull Countess Isabella, whom his elderly uncle wants to wed, gives a fair show of vigor and emotion. There is a marked rise in the film's temperature. And the big terminal fight of these two buckos, swinging on bell-ropes in a castle tower, is pretty good.

Also, we must say that Kay Kendall as the countess makes a lady fair for any man's strong protective impulse, even though she does bounce through the role with much the same flippancy and banter that she showed in "Genevieve." It is difficult to take Miss Kendall as a lady of fifteenth-century France. But it is difficult to take this picture as anything but a massive masquerade.

True, it does have some handsome glimpses of famous French chateaux, and there is an occasional scenic flavor of France, where some of it was made. But the bulk of it smacks of slow play-acting in an over-dressed studio. Mr. Taylor and the boys did much better by Sir Walter when they made "Ivanhoe."